


Out of the Mouth of Babes (or A Candlelit Dinner)

by Nightlightinthedark



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, idiots to lovers, romantic dinner, so fluffy I just can’t cope, warlock dowling is the real hero of this story, you’ll understand if you read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 01:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20323060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightlightinthedark/pseuds/Nightlightinthedark
Summary: Mrs. Dowling lit the last tealight candle, and stood back to survey her work. Is it enough? 100 tealight candles glowing in the dim, vast kitchen, and reflecting off every metallic, shiny surface. On top of the stove, on the counters, the center island, shelves, refrigerator. She ran through a mental checklist of all the prepared elements (last on the list was the tealights—check!). Doubt caught her for a moment—It should have been in the formal dining room—until the manifest magic of being surrounded by so many small flames, like fairy lights, sent a wave of chills over her neck and down her limbs.She sighed.If these two idiots don’t understand this, then, well…





	Out of the Mouth of Babes (or A Candlelit Dinner)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the a tumblr “ask”/prompt to write about a holiday during the time Crowley and Aziraphale were raising Warlock in the Dowling household. 
> 
> <3

Mrs. Dowling lit the last tealight candle, and stood back to survey her work.  _ Is it enough? _ 100 tealight candles glowing in the dim, vast kitchen, and reflecting off every metallic, shiny surface. On top of the stove, on the counters, the center island, shelves, refrigerator. She ran through a mental checklist of all the prepared elements (last on the list was the tealights—check!). Doubt caught her for a moment— _ It should have been in the formal dining room— _ until the manifest magic of being surrounded by so many small flames, like fairy lights, sent a wave of chills over her neck and down her limbs. 

She sighed. 

_ If these two idiots don’t understand  _ this,  _ then, well… _

Nanny Ashtoreth was upstairs, putting Warlock to bed, she knew. Warlock was snug under his blankets, Nanny sitting patiently on the rocking chair near the bed and giving in to six-year-old Warlock’s small, insistent pleas for Nanny to read another story. “Just  _ one  _ more, Nanny, and I promise I’ll go to sleep! I will!” 

Ms. Ashtoreth could be reserved, removed, strict—severe, even—but there was absolutely  _ nothing _ that Nanny wouldn’t do for Warlock, and Mrs. Dowling knew this for fact. In her core. It was… enduring. And it made her little mission all the more enthusiastically pursued. 

And it gave her more time to finish her preparations. 

_ Tealights…and...  _ she ran through her mental checklist one last time. Nanny would be coming downstairs soon, and Brother Francis in from his cottage in the garden. The note she had left for both of them on their separate Communications Corkboards (their usual method of formal communication—one in the laundry room near Nanny’s room, one in Brother Francis’ shed) asked them to appear, formally dressed, for additional service in the kitchen promptly at 8 o’clock in the evening. “Entertaining dignitaries again,” Mrs. Dowling had told Brother Francis the day before when he had politely asked why he was needed. “Lots of stuffed shirts. I need all hands on deck.” 

_ Candles...The CARD!  _ Mrs. Dowling jumped at the thought and ran lightly to her office where she grabbed a child’s handmade card from off the top of her desk. Back in the kitchen, she placed it in the middle of the small table set for two, then took a deep breath. Checked her watch.  _ 7:59.  _ And waited. 

Miraculously, Nanny entered one end of the kitchen just as Brother Francis entered opposite from the outside door. 

They both visibly startled when they beheld the glow of the kitchen. 

Brother Frances looked to Mrs. Dowling for some explanation. Something to reassure him that this couldn’t possibly be anything like what it appeared to be. 

Mrs. Dowling broke the silence. “Surprise!” She chuckled, awkwardly.

Nanny stood frozen in the entrance. Brother Francis stepped forward, toward Mrs. Dowling and the middle of the kitchen, where a table was covered in platters of deliciously aromatic food and an alarming amount of red rose petals. 

“There’s no...dinner? I mean, for the dignitaries?” 

“No.” Mrs. Dowling grinned, but spoke softly. Almost seriously. “You two could use a night off. Together. So… enjoy.” 

Mrs. Dowling walked past Nanny and out of the kitchen, pausing only to lean closer to her as she passed by and said, “Oh! And happy Valentine’s day.” Her footsteps receded down the hall. 

Nanny Ashtoreth swallowed hard. 

“Well…” Brother Francis stood by one of the chairs at the table. Blood rose to his cheeks.

“She went to a lot of work here, didn’t she?”

“Yes.” Nanny’s voice was tight. 

“I suppose it would be rude not to sit and eat a bit.” He pulled out a chair and gestured for Nanny to sit.

Nanny exhaled. “Right. A good woman, that one.” 

She walked into the glowing room and sat. She was wearing a black dress—sensible, but form-fitting—black heels, red hair pulled back into a bun. A contrast, as usual, to Brother Francis’s present cream and peach-colored suit ensemble. 

Brother Francis helped push in her chair and then sat opposite. In silence, he began dishing out food for them both. 

Nanny eyed the bouquet of yellow acacia flowers in the middle of the table. She pulled a handkerchief from a small, black purse, and dabbed it at her sweating brow. 

“This is bloody-fucking- _ awful.”  _

Brother Francis paused, salad tongs in air, and nearly dropped them as he and Nanny burst out laughing. 

“It  _ is _ , isn’t it?” 

Still recovering, Nanny uncorked the bottle of champagne that sat in an ice bath within an ornate silver bowl on the table, and filled their glasses to the brim.

Brother Francis spoke softer; conspiratorially. “Do you think I can… can we be ourselves?” His eyes regarded the doorway that led to the rest of the first floor of the house. 

“Yeah, sure. She put petals on the table. I don’t think she’s planning on interrupting.” Nanny Ashtoreth, Crowley, looked at Brother Francis, Aziraphale, as she downed her glass. 

From behind round glasses, Crowley’s eyes met Aziraphale’s for a moment, but quickly broke contact. Even in candle light, over a table covered in petals…  _ especially  _ in candle light, over a table covered in petals… somehow, after 6,000 years, it was too much, too soon. 

Aziraphale discreetly removed his prosthetic teeth, wrapped them up and hid them somewhere out of sight. “That’s better.” 

They ate and talked about averting the apocalypse through their influence over such a small, seemingly innocuous human as they emptied the bottle of champagne, and the ridiculousness of the setting and circumstance slowly receded into the background. 

It was only after their plates were empty (even Crowley’s— the food was surprisingly good) that the presence of an envelope on the table asserted itself. 

Crowley had noticed it first, but said nothing. 

Seeing it peeking out from under the vase, Aziraphale perked up with interest. “Why, hello. There’s a card.” 

As Aziraphale removed it from its hiding place, Crowley caught site of the wiggly handwriting on the front, and his heart skipped a beat. 

Aziraphale opened the envelope to reveal a purple construction paper card with a giant pink heart, crudely cut, on the front. In the same shaky penmanship: “TO nAnny” 

Aziraphale opened it. A folded note fell out, but his eyes were too busy skimming the words inside the card to notice. 

“ _ Oh _ .”

“What?” Crowley set down her glass and tried to look uninterested. 

Aziraphale handed Crowley the card. She read aloud before she could stop herself: “Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you and you love me and Broth—“ 

Crowley halted. The candles flickered in the deafening silence.

Aziraphale couldn’t bear the weight of Crowley’s concealed eyes upon him. “Perhaps I’ve influenced him too strongly. Love, and all that.”

Shifting in his chair, he suddenly realized that Crowley had taken off her glasses and was staring at him with unfaltering golden eyes. 

“I do.” Crowley’s voice was steady and quiet and clear. 

Perhaps Aziraphale had misheard. 

“What?” 

“I said, I do.” 

“You what?”

Crowley rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help herself from smiling. “If I have to say it one more time. I swear, angel…”

“Please…” Tears gathered in the corners of Aziraphale’s eyes. “Could you? Please?”

Crowley’s head was bowed now, little pieces of crimson hair falling forward and catching the candlelight like so many more flames. Aziraphale’s whole corporation ached in the emptiness. 

Crowley looked up and waited before she spoke again, seeming to make sure that Aziraphale heard her and saw her and understood her this time. 

_ 6,000 years, Angel. _

“I love you, Aziraphale.” 

Aziraphale’s breathe caught and his heart threatened to break out from beneath his ribs. With the back of a trembling hand, he wiped a tear from his cheek. 

Crowley watched on quietly as Aziraphale picked up his napkin and wrung it in his hands over and over again. Suddenly, Crowley was struck by the possibility that she had been mistaken for saying it. 

“Are you OK?”

“......”

“Aziraphale?”

“I’m just… Oh….” the words seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I love you too, Crowley...”

Crowley released an audible sigh of relief and leaned in closer over the small table. 

“But I’m scared.” Aziraphale hated himself as he said it. But there seemed no other way to be now. No other way than open. Even if it hurt.

“Where do I even start?” 

Long fingers gently helped release the napkin from Aziraphale’s hands and lifted them up to near Crowley’s face. 

“Here.” Crowley kissed the tips of Aziraphale’s fingers. “With me.” 

Aziraphale’s chair nearly fell backwards from the force of standing up and moving towards Crowley. 

“ _ Always _ with you.” 

—————————————————————

Later that night (or was it early the next morning?) Aziraphale returned to clean up the aftermath of the evening in the kitchen and found a folded note on the table near his plate. On it, in neat handwriting:

Nanny and Francis,

I hope you have a nice dinner and can forgive me for this evening. I wouldn’t have done it, except Warlock came home with this card he made at school and it nearly broke my heart. “From the mouth of babes..” I couldn’t let another holiday pass without giving you the nudge (I hope!) you want and know you deserve.

Your friend, 

Harriet Dowling 

P.S. I packed up and took Warlock on a spur of the moment trip to the beach for the weekend, so you have the whole house to yourselves. 

Enjoy.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so insecure about posting. But this fandom is so supportive and lovely! I hope someone enjoyed this.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated! :)


End file.
